


Homecoming

by manhattan



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: Becoming A Legend Ain't Easy, Gen, Growing Old, Masara Town | Pallet Town, Mental Anguish, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 21:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21464695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manhattan/pseuds/manhattan
Summary: Red might be going around in circles, but he is always going to keep running.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> that's right. i'm back on my "depressed nostalgic legendary elusive champion red" headcanons, and y'all can't stop me.
> 
> anyway this is a years-old piece i dusted off and edited a bit. it's short, fragmented, and quite open-ended, but i love it dearly, and it makes me Feel Things. please enjoy!

His first scar is barely more than a pale bump of skin beneath the jut of knee bone, on the underside of it. Green’s hands had hurt more, on either one of his shoulders, the hate in his gaze like a precious jewel, sharpened into a point. Red had fallen back on his palms, elbows giving under the weight of his body and the surprise he’d felt, and he’d bled all the way home.

Afterwards, his mother had kissed it better, a short warmth that was barely palpable between the burning of the rubbing alcohol. 

Red still has that scar. Maybe he should’ve stopped picking at the scab, or maybe Green should’ve reigned his temper, or maybe things would always end the same, anyway, and the only thing that changed was the place where he got it.

It is better like this. Where it lies, unseen, it is easily forgotten.

* * *

He comes down from that mountain, sometimes. He might be more resilient than most, but he wants to die with all his toes, and Mt. Silver is ruthless in the winters. Red gives in, as he has been taught to by life and other people, and treks down. Takes his time on the walk, though, for his will is still his own despite what the mountain might believe.

At night, Pallet feels like the edge of the world. The white sea at its back, shimmering white and smooth, or the crashing black void when the moon is new. Like if Red were to take just one more step, always one more step, the sea would oblige and tip off the world’s end in a waterfall, bleeding down into the stars. 

He used to think that when he was younger. That the ships lost to the currents and the tides had fallen down into the mouth of the universe, and that everyone was just too polite to say it out loud.

But then he’d made the trip.

Landing on the sandy plane of Pallet’s beach, sun-burnt and parched, mouth creasing at the corners with salt from the air, he’d felt like he’d been crowned the Champion of the peninsula. Cinnabar was barely a dot in the distance, made obvious only by the meandering smoke of the volcano, and Red had buried his fingers in the sand, felt its grains warm the skin between his knuckles.

He’d thought himself a man, then; an achiever. A pioneer, almost, but in the end Red knew better than anyone how many trainers rode down to Pallet’s piers from the depths of the sea. He’d greeted them all, those sea-weary and sunburnt people, and he’d wondered how they hadn’t been swallowed by the abyss.

Still. He’d thought himself a man, then, placing himself so far from just a skinny kid without scars. 

He hadn’t known.

* * *

His mother is older, now. Lines crease her eyes and mouth, deepening when she smiles at him from the doorway. It is always a relief to see that despite the years, she is still the same. Or that she still feels the same love for him, no matter how Red has wronged her. No one deserves to be abandoned, and she’s gone through it more times than Red remembers. Still does. 

They head into the kitchen, bodies on auto-pilot: Red shrugs out of his vest while his mother ducks into her apron. 

His clothes settle on the chair, his chair, like they were meant to dress the wood. The bow on his mother’s back bobs with her movements as she stirs the homecoming hot chocolate, the left end longer than the other like always. Another thing to soothe him; another thing to unnerve him. 

Nothing ever changes in Pallet. 

Red doesn’t know why he is still surprised, after all these years, but maybe that is also a part of it. Ironic, if it were amusing. The feeling is hollow, instead. 

He listens to his mother’s voice, low and soft: the neighborhood is the same old, same old, Daisy’s rose bushes flourished so sweetly in spring, and just the other week another bunch of school kids set out on their own adventures, how exciting, but to think that just a couple of years ago, well, and here she sniffles a bit, teary-eyed …

Red knows how this conversation goes, from the way his mother smiles at her memories to the way her eyes go bright and dewy in the kitchen light. Still, he always listens. Nothing ever changes in Pallet. He’s tried, and failed, and now he just follows the rule.

* * *

His sheets still smell of fabric softener, always newly-washed, but his computer rests under a layer of dust. Red blows on it, watches the specks roll and fall, and then reaches out to wipe the glass with his sleeve.

The soft whirr of the fan picking up when he pressed the switch, the static on the screen as it powered down, the sound and weight of the keys as he browsed his inventory. Back then, it had been state-of-the art. Green had bought a newer model half a week after Red had gotten his, high power and a bigger screen, and he had never let Red forget about it.

It had been state-of-the-art, once. Now, it is a relic, replaced by technology that could fit twice in the palm of Red’s hand. Defunct machines in defunct bedrooms.

Red stands in front of it, staring down at his reflection amidst the fading dust. The screen’s dark curve molds it into someone else, a caricature of a boy he doesn’t recognize anymore. They both share the same tired expression.

One day, he is going to be buried in this town. To die isn’t half as terrifying.

* * *

Red always stays inside for the remainder of his stay.

His mother, thankfully, has learned not to comment on his presence until after he has already left, and Red imagines it to be only a passing comment, just an assurance to their neighbors that he hasn’t yet completely abandoned her. He imagines the looks on their faces, too, or the way they trade dubious glances when they think his mother isn’t looking.

But that is only that: imagination. What is real is the low hum of people talking on the television, and the punctual swish of a book page turning. Culinary, always, and doesn’t she get tired?

Red’s books, even as outdated as they are, stay on the bottom sill of the living room’s shelf. He’s read them all more than once, but can barely remember what tactics they cover. Back when fairies were only legend and superstition, instead of a mutation of the pokémon gene. Back when psychics were ahead of their game, obliterating any opponents without even blinking.

Red looks at his hands. Calloused and dry, with tiny white dots where his pikachu bit him once, and flecks of pink where his charmander burned him on accident, and he is so old. He is so old.

He curls his fingers one by one, wishing it were as easy to turn back time, wishing it were as easy to feel that rush of wanderlust and marvel of discovery. To feel anxious at the start of a new route or a new battle, the nagging doubt that he might lose. To feel … to _feel_.

He used to be so young, before. And maybe he still is, but the life he has ahead of him is long, and empty, and what else is there to do when you’ve done what you set out to achieve? And so beautifully, so effortlessly, so well. A legend, a myth. 

The world will forever tell the story they made up.

Sitting on his mother’s couch, the holder of the truth opens his hands to find half-moons drawn into his palms. The last expression of anger he allows himself, and then, and then—

* * *

The white of winter settles across the world until spring replaces it, and Red makes his bed, settles into his vest, and begins anew. Dust flowers against curved glass, and Cinnabar’s peak dissipates into smoke, and mothers grow smaller and more crinkled with each passing year, and Red goes back to that mountain.

It is better like this. Red is sure, he is  _ sure, _ it is better like this, it must be, because the alternative is a hot brand pushing into his lungs, his chest, and he can’t bring himself to have expectations anymore. 

It is better like this. Where he stays, unseen, he is easily forgotten. 

Maybe one day he will even forget himself, and wouldn’t that be nice?


End file.
